Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

Leaden footsteps carried me across the ice choked devastations of the Newtown Pentacle over the weekend. One desired to see his beloved Creek, after all. My destination and goal was the East River and getting the shots displayed in yesterday’s post, depicting the FDNY’s Firefighter 2 battling a blaze along the coastline of North Brooklyn, so a laconic scuttle was enacted through the cold waste. It was soon decided that the indolent life style of a home bound winter hermit has damaged my muscle tone and badly affected overall stamina. I’m all ‘effed up.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It took everything I had to endure the cold, which easily penetrated through the twenty nine pounds of thermal underwears, sweaters, boots, and street cassock (a pet name for the filthy black raincoat) hanging in a sickening fashion about me, as if they weren’t present. One could barely stand at certain points, and the only thing keeping my feet moving past the once upon a time location of the venerable Penny Bridge was the fear of becoming frozen to the sidewalk were I to collapse. Sometimes, one must lean into it, embracing physiological entropy. My beloved Creek sensed my weakness and fatigue, and allowed me to enjoy the ecstasies of her gestalt.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

If I have a place anywhere upon the earth where a wellspring of energy might be tapped into, where the lines of lei are arranged in my favor, it’s here at Penny Bridge. Calvary, First Calvary, is across the street and my beloved Creek splashes her gelatinous analog for water upon the oil stained bulkheads about a thousand feet away. Here, in the cold waste, was nepenthe experienced. Officially, one is “back on the beat” and this – your Newtown Pentacle – is back in session. Enough of this wintry sloth, a humble narrator is tired of the boredom, and the Newtown Creek offers thrills both salacious and sublime.

A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual—an independently acting and responsible conscious being (“existence”)—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits (“essence”). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her “true essence” instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Ireland was towing a work barge which was carrying a materials handler as it entered the Kill. Notice the bars sticking up out of the barge, they would be driven down into the soft bottom of the waterway before any work started, and act as stabilizing stilts- or so I’ve been told.

Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.

The five primary forms of deception are:

Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.

Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.

Concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.

Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.

Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Ireland was heading toward the New Jersey side of the Kill, where the petrochemical industry looms large. This shoreline infrastructure is an essential component of the mechanism which is New York City. We are, all of us, components of this machine in some way or another.

Egocentric predicament, a term coined by Ralph Barton Perry in an article (Journal of Philosophy 1910), is the problem of not being able to view reality outside of our own perceptions. All worldly knowledge takes the form of mental representations that our mind examines in different ways. Direct contact with reality cannot be made outside of our own minds; therefore, we cannot be sure reality even exists. This means that we are each limited to our own perceptual world and views.

This Maritime Sunday posting presents the crossing of the Kill Van Kull by two tugs of the Coastline Marine Towing Corporation. They are moving a crane barge from points unknown to some destination at the Port Elizabeth Newark complex. Said shots were captured while onboard a Working Harbor Committee expedition during the summer of 2012. As you can see, it was a dark and stormy night.

Coastline Marine Towing has been serving the New York-Metro Harbors and US Eastern Seaboard for 20 years. We provide experienced crew and vessels that are ready to accommodate the logistics of your marine project.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Little information is available on the tug Ireland, although a friend of mine asserts that it’s a 1940 vintage vessel. It did not display radio call sign information on its hull, which would have aided me in discerning its past and capabilities. The radio call sign, for maritime vessels, performs the same function which a license plate does for motor vehicles.

Whether it’s a single barge, a group of barges made up as a single unit, or a vessel, when being moved by a tugboat, it’s called the “tow” (singular). A tug can move a tow in one of three different ways:

Astern – The tug pulls the tow via a tow line from the stern of the tug. This is common for ocean towing but less used in confined harbors as it may be difficult to keep the tow from swinging side to side.

Pushing – The tug ties off behind the tow, and pushes it forward. This provides a greater deal of control compared to towing astern.

Alongside (on the hip) – The tug ties up alongside the tow, typically aft of the midpoint of the tow. This method also provides a good deal of control.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The capabilities of google are confounded when a search term like “Tug Ireland” is offered to it. Lacking syntax, the algorithms of the search giant deliver a cogent result describing the coastal towing capabilities of a European nation state rather than those which would define and encapsulate the history of a single tugboat. Nevertheless, a hearty Maritime Sunday shout out is sent to both the faraway coast of an Emerald Island and to the crew of a singular tugboat alike.

Port refers to the left hand side of a vessel as you face forward and starboard refers to the right hand side. Before the rudder was invented (by the Chinese), boats and ships were steered by means of a steering board. Since most people are right handed, it was customary to mount the steering board on the right hand side of the ship. This, the right hand side became know as the “steering board” side, which was eventually shortened to “starboard” side, and this term is still in use today.